An Elegy! In the Summer!

I’m continually told Sweden is a wonderful place …in the Summer!

Today is Valborgsmässoafton in Sweden; The celebration of Spring. We are going to a traditional celebration tonight, where a huge bonfire is lit to frighten away demons of darkness and gloom and welcome the lengthening days. We have been invited to a celebratory release of the cows next week from their winter imprisonment! I wondered where the massive piles of manure came from as I hadn’t seen a single cow! It will be a moo-ving experience (thank you Karen). If I was a Student at Uppsala University I would wear a white velvet cap today and sing traditional Swedish songs. (I think that’s why my application to attend the university failed. I didn’t tick the ‘can sing traditional Swedish songs’ and ‘look good in a white velvet cap’ boxes)

The approach of Summer is a massive deal here. Mostly, I suspect, because winter is so long and depressing. I thought I’d try and capture the joy of the winter’s end and the celebration pending Summer.

In the Summer!

There’s no vast white expanse of snö and ice to light the endless darkness of polar winter

In the Summer

No need for arctic approved thermals and being labelled up to the hilt in Northface gear (because Canada goose is too expensive)

In the (it hits 20ºC if you’re lucky) Summer

No sour faced and bewildered vodka soaked locals, unwilling to make eye contact

In the (let’s all put our party hats on) Summer

No irritatingly hyper fit extreme cross country skiers in bright yellow, way-too-tight, 70’s ski gear

In the (what do we do now?) summer

No need for nature’s Aurora Borealis light show to illuminate the night (allegedly in these parts)

In the (24 hours of daylight preventing any sleep) Summer

No need to fathom the confusing winter tyre laws that make winter tyres compulsory but banned from certain roads

In the (still speed cameras everywhere and watch out for wandering Mooses) Summer

Your first Swedish word of necessity, to clean the car of the sticky black tar like residue from the roads, isn’t Avtettning

In the (now what’s the Swedish for ‘I don’t speak Swedish’?) summer

No need to stock up the potato store to bunker down for the season

In the (it’s still potatoes for dinner because meat is so ridiculously expensive) summer

No need open the local swimming pool when there’s a beautiful barely defrosted lake to swim in

In the (mosquito infested, midge plagued) Summer

Gone are the ‘Closed for winter’ signs at all the little seaside souvenir shops

In the (we still sell lots of seriously overpriced shit and shut at random times) summer

There’s a decent restaurant that’s open just 20 miles away

In the (cant get a table because of all the tourists) Summer

Summer lasts a whole week in Sweden!

Swedish Shampagne Shitfest!

* Warning! I say ‘shit’ a lot in this blog!

They say life is not about the destination but the journey. Sometimes the destination can be a poignant end to a journey someone… or something has been on.

I have to confess I knew very little about Sweden before I moved here. After 3 months of living here I haven’t really added to my bank of knowledge. Like everyone else, I was familiar with Abba, fermented herring (not so familiar) and Ryvita! I wasn’t disappointed! Pictures of Abba greet you at the airport along with other famous Swedes, whose names escape me. There are whole aisles of knäckebröd in the supermarkets. As for fish… that’s a blog dying (and stinking) to be written!

There was one other thing I knew about Sweden. Orrefors make beautiful glassware. Every Christmas for 6 years we were the recipients of 2 champagne flutes (the ‘Nobel’ design by Gunnar Cyrén) from Hubby’s Swedish boss. Being a plain girl with simple tastes, initially I considered them glitzy and gaudy but loved them anyway. When I looked to buy wine glasses to match and found out how much they cost, they suddenly seemed very elegant and understated and I loved them even more! They were very posh and very beautiful. I say ‘were’. Every journey takes its toll.

My champagne flutes have been on a bit of a journey with me from Sweden to England and on to America and now back to Sweden. As they have been repatriated to their home land I’m looking forward to making new friends, sharing a glass or two of champagne and sharing the harrowing story of the champagne flutes to a Swedish audience.

I’m never quite sure with after dinner stories whether to keep them as short anecdotes or stretch them out with detail into full stories. To tell my newly acquired Swedish friends, impressed with my Swedish champagne flutes (which are so posh, the local very posh hotel has a set in a locked cabinet as a display) the anecdote; ‘these very champagne flutes were once filled with shit in America’, might not amuse given their Swedish origin. It might also cause unnecessary alarm and concern that I might not have washed them properly afterwards. Besides, it’s an exaggeration! It wasn’t solid shit, more a murky brown shit fused water!

I guess I will have to tell the long version.

I never name and shame so I will have to stick to that principle here. Anyway, I blame myself. I thought my shitty visitor was only pretending to have the shits because he was a boring shit who didn’t want to go out and do Jack shit. We did go out but, as with a couple of other nights, had to come back early because someone had tumpkin ache! Id been in bed ten minutes when I was woken to be told water was running down the kitchen walls. Someone had blocked the guest toilet… with shit…. And the shitty water was seeping through the walls down stairs into the kitchen… Into the kitchen cupboards to be precise. To be totally exact, it was filling up £600 worth of champagne flutes and it wasn’t with Moet! I was ‘lucky’ in that the wall cavity and plaster acted as a shit sieve so solid bits didn’t get through. It was more a defused eau d’ shit water.

White the shitty water filled 5 wall cupboards, 5 draws and 5 floor cupboards, the shitter went to sleep. Worse still, he suggested my 7 year old son had blocked the toilet; A toilet my son never uses (at the far side of the house – it was a big house – it was Texas!!!) with more shit than his total body weight! My son, capable of many shitty horrors, was not responsible for this one!

It was late. The shit flow was halted. I went to bed, while the vintage in the champagne glasses ‘breathed’ and matured like fine wine! By morning I had developed a cleaning OCD. It was less ‘once more into the Breach’, more ‘where’s the fucking Bleach!’  Armed with gallons of beach and rubber gloves I began operation clean up. Every vessel was filled with water with more than a hint of shit. I had to throw all my PG tips teabags away which was tragic enough, but I will never forget my elegant, tall Swedish champagne flutes, every one of them, filled with turgid brown water.

I was completely in the zone! Barking orders! Everyone was shit scared. Including me! Literally! Hard not to be with that many pooh particles about! I have been hospitalised with Campylobacteriosis which is caught via ‘fecal-oral, ingestion of contaminated food or water’ i.e. eating shit! I never want it again! I used spray disinfectant, proven to kill 99% of shitty things dead! I used so much I couldn’t breathe and began heaving. The last thing I needed was a sickfest to go with the shitfest. I did, for a fleeting moment wonder if it had all been a ploy to get me to do some housework!

All this time the ‘alleged’ shitter slept on! He emerged, with impeccable timing, when the last shitty item had been bleached.

Arse!

Shitty Arse!

I wondered if the spray disinfectant would work on him.

Thinking about it realistically, there are two problems with telling the shitty champagne story to dinner guests. Swedes might not like the total lack of respect, indeed, the downright cruelty bestowed on Sweden’s finest glassware. Also, they might not want to finish their glass of champagne.

Ooooh! Every cloud! Alcohol is really expensive here. If I only half fill their glasses, they sure as shit wont want a refill!

Pretty Kitty

They say ignorance is bliss. That’s all well and good if you remain in blissful ignorance. Sometimes having your ignorance exposed can be enlightening or painful, or both! 

I don’t like to write about anything personal for fear of ridicule, embarrassment or the likelihood of being sectioned. Some topics are a bit below the belt but luckily this happened to a friend, well below the belt! I’ll write in the first person though because it’s easier than writing about a friend and their friends, it gets confusing and I have a no naming, and in this case, shaming, policy.

Usually, in a colder climate you only have to worry about your bikini line on your fortnightly foreign holiday or for special occasions and rare visits from gentlemen callers but when you’ve got a swimming pool in your back garden you have to keep things more trimmed… Otherwise it frightens the children… and neighbours… and hummingbirds try to nest in the overspill.

I simply had not realized until a girls’ night out in the UK that a mere trim was so 1980 and these days a full Brazilian was the order of the day. Initially I just thought the company that night was a bit risqué so I asked other friends. One friend stared in horror and disbelief when I shared the shock that the women I had been out with the night before all had shaven havens. I was relieved until it dawned on me that the horror was directed at me. I’ll never forget the derisory ‘You still have hair? There?’ She later emailed to tell me she had ‘totally’ (not just in passing, but totally!) thought of me when Cameron Diaz on the Graham Norton Show had described her friends 70’s style bush that floated like seaweed in the bath. I had thought the sway of ‘seaweed’ relaxing but I clearly needed to get with the times. Peer pressure succeeded where my husband’s begging had failed for years! 

Upon my return to Texas I decided to investigate the Brazilian! I looked it up on the internet and once I removed the moderate filters I got a mass of fanny images that have scarred me for life! Having always kept my own under generous cover and having never watched a porn movie I had no idea they were that ugly! I can understand men trimming to make it look bigger but that’s the exact reason women shouldn’t! Who wants to see all that gubbins? (That’s a rhetorical question!). Perhaps dehairing isn’t enough of a makeover. Maybe adding a bit of bling and sparkle by vajazzling improves the over all appearance. 

Not wanting to be ridiculed I decided to bite the bullet (not the little gold one from Ann Summers) and take the plunge, as it were! There are a few options for those, like me (remember its not me really, I’ve been bald for years!) who have never more than trimmed: You can wax, shave or use hair removing cream. I guess you could pluck or epilate if you were into self flagellation. 

A good friend got me a leaflet for The Pretty Kitty, a waxing venue which boasted ‘The Brazilian is our specialty’. They said they ‘remove it all, front back and everything inbetween’. I wasn’t sure I was ready for such a drastic transformation but I was encouraged by the promise that ‘we never double dip our sticks’. No girl wants that! It said the pain was ‘tolerable’ and ‘freshly waxed skin may be tender for a couple of days’ and ‘skin may break out in tiny bumps’. I didn’t want to look bald and diseased but it was when they started talking about ingrowing hair that I really went off the idea! I had an ingrowing hair on my little finger once, all septic and sore! I did not want to add that prospect to the red tender lumpy welt the wax might leave behind! Waxing is not for the feint hearted and I was feeling decidedly feint! 

Having trimmed, if not totally strimmed for years, I thought shaving might be ok but doing the back and everything inbetween with a razor seemed rather risky. Perhaps a combination of razor and hair removing cream for those difficult to reach bits is the way forward. 

The funniest thing I have ever read is the Veet for men Hair removal cream reviews on Amazon. They are eye wateringly funny. I assumed the reason hair removal cream caused such eye watering pain on men was because, being men, they didn’t read the instructions. I read the instructions. I timed 6 minutes precisely. I only put it on the parts I couldn’t reach easily, or see, and I only put a tiny bit on! Lighting farts and removing bottom hair with the blow back would burn less than hair removal cream! One reviewer said, upon application of the removal cream, ‘At first there was a gentle warmth which in a matter of seconds was replaced by an intense burning and a feeling I can only describe as like being given a barbed wire wedgie by two people intent on hitting the ceiling with my head’. The reviews are spot on, when you put a spot on! Thank heavens I had Sudocrem (used for nappy rash and minor burns) to put on to ease the pain! The reviews did say however, the end results were completely hairless. My experience wasn’t so successful. It looked like Steptoe’s chin…. Gurning! 

What my friends didn’t tell me was it becomes a full time job to keep it all in check. Regrowth is a nightmare. Sunday night bath time became a vital part of husbandry! The first time not blocking the plug hole with all the debris was a real challenge. At a certain length the stubble is spiky and itchy and I happen to think, in public places, a few stray hairs sticking out of your bikini is better than raking the constant regrowth itch! 

Still, the end result of deforestation was appreciated and I was no longer a social outcast! 

Moving to Sweden* presents new dilemmas. It is freezing! There is no pool. No skimpy bikinis. Do I need to bother with the upkeep? My hubby allows his habitual stubble to grow into a beard when he’s disaffected. Maybe I should do the same! Should I let the lady garden grow wild and free again? Unless I let it grow to my feet, where it can poke out of my thermal long johns, a sprouting pant moustache is no longer a problem. Also there is no bath. Getting yourself into a position to shave the harder to reach areas in a shower is much harder than in a bath and I aint never using hair removal cream there again! There are no humming birds threatening to make a nest! Oh… and did I mention, it’s cold? I’m sure the extra hair will help keep me warm! However, there is one important element that I need to remember, we have a sauna…Not sure if the neighbours call in for a social sauna. I’ve heard the Swedes are quite liberal. It might be embarrassing if I go into the sauna and someone thinks a small critter is hiding under my towel! Unless the Swedes are European in a German sort of way, I might have to continue something I wish I had never started! 

*what are the chances of having a friend with a hairy Mary that lived in Texas and has now moved to Sweden! What a coincidence! 

A Farewell to Arms... and other things!

I wrote this before I left Houston last month:

Things I’ll  miss when I leave Texas

I will miss Texas! Texas is a crazy place. My first impression of Texas was big, hot and scary! I have grown to love this place. I love that it behaves like and believes it’s a Republic. I wish I could wave St George’s flag with the same courage and patriotism.  I love (and fear) their absurd attitude to guns and Conservatives (with a massive capital C) and religion! I don’t agree with any of it but I admire their passion!

I will miss road kill! I have seen some incredible animals up close even if they were, regrettably, dead. Possums, skunks, deer, armadillos…. All weird and wonderful

Hummingbirds! One of my favourite things last summer was watching the hummingbirds, tiny, like fat bumblebees! Sweden is too cold for hummingbirds. That makes me feel very sad!

I shall actually miss the critters! It is easy to say I will miss the weather but there is a lot of nastiness that goes with hot humid weather so to show how much I’ll miss the weather I have to embrace all that goes with it! I will miss the sound of the kamikaze dune bugs that plop into the pool and splat against the windows at night and the clever little frogs that stick to the windows waiting for them.

Having a tan! I love having a tan! I may have grown a muffin top in America but even rolls of fat look better tanned! I am going from the sublime to the ridiculous! From 23°C in January, getting sunburned in sunny Sugar land to -23°C in Sweden, where there is no sun, for 6 months! …Maybe blue is the new brown!

The dang time difference. I will miss it! While I might feel lonely at wine o’ clock because everyone back home is asleep when I want to chat, glass of wine in hand, I have loved the drunken calls I have received in the middle of the day….

I haven’t appreciated the early morning ones though when people have forgotten the time difference!

I will miss having a pool! I really do appreciate how lucky I’ve been to live in a house with its own 9ft deep swimming pool in the back garden. I grew up on a shitty council estate and we had to share our bath water on a Sunday! I know how far I’ve come! You can take the girl out of Kings Norton!

I shall miss my ex-pat friends. I know someone who wrote a book (actually wrote a book and got it published FFS!) and I remember him saying something about wearing the same rock T-shirt gave you affinity with the other wearers. This might work at rock concerts but it doesn’t automatically work in America with Brits. Some Brits are americanised in the way that when Americans say ‘have a nice day’ they wouldn’t give you the time of day if you were having a shitty one. Some Brits speak to you initially because you have a British accent but then, just like the American wives of Azalea Lane, want to see if your saucepans are the right brand before they would ever dream of inviting you to dinner and even then, just like Americans, the evening would be over by 9pm. Some expats are a little like magpies… making themselves cosy in whatever nest has the shiniest things! Way too transient! My initial experiences of expats made me wary, and lonely!
In Sugar Land I had the good fortune to meet an amazing bunch (everything collective in America is a ‘bunch’) of expat ladies who have been all over the world and recognize that the short and transient nature of your stay somewhere makes it more important to embrace each other completely. They would do anything for me and for each other. I have laughed and cried with them, learned new skills (yes! I did make quilts!) and had such good fun. The best of times. Thank you! I am going to miss them dearly!

My blog! I have so enjoyed writing about my weird and wonderful experiences in America. The more depressed, angry or horrified I became, the funnier the blogs! I've been happy for months and the result has been bloggers block! My American blog will be something for me to look back on in years to come and marvel that it did really happen, to me, and it wasn't just some very peculiar dream!

  

I’m sat looking out across a frozen lake in sub zero temperatures, missing all of those things so much more than I ever thought I would. I couldn't be further away from Texas!  On the plus side I can see that weird and wonderful might be the order of the day again  here in Sweden, along with horror and depression! After finally finding a home in Texas, I am certainly once more a stranger in a strange land! I feel a blog coming on!

Dear Santa, Jesus, God...

As flies to wanton boys are we to th' gods,

They kill us for their sport

Dear Jesus, The Holy Shamrock, Zeus, Santa and all the other big wigs!

I am sorry! I have clearly pissed you all off …a lot! I know I have mocked religion just a little in my blog. I include Santa as a God because he has the same credentials… imaginary, blindly believed in by millions of hapless people (in this case, children, lied to by parents rather than priests) and he promises things if you are good but never delivers… someone else has to fake it! He shares a special day with Jesus. Oh, and like religion he is a massive commercial success! I have failed to maintain the magic of Santa for my 10 year old who now thinks you’re fake (sorry!).

I know I’ve been a bad girl but I didn’t realize how bad until the Karma came back around!

Being told I have to leave the promised land of Americana, the land of milking the honeys to move to Sweden should have been enough punishment for all my badness. To exchange the glorious sunshine and shallowness of Texas for cold dark days in Sweden will give me time enough to reflect on my sins, but no! Not enough for you bastards.

First, you cause me to break my little toe en-route, not just stub it…an oblique fracture which means it twisted and broke diagonally! I was forced to endure the hideous shame of having to buy and wear fake crocs. This guaranteed the whole trip hurt a lot!

Maybe Santa it was because I eat smoked Reindeer on my first day in Sweden, looking for houses and schools that you butted into the equation to ruin Christmas. I was told it was a delicacy. It looked bad and tasted worse and I will never do it again! I promise. I’ll stick to fermented herring from now on as a form of self flagellation for ever eating Rudolf!

We were shown a house that I now see represents heaven! A heavenly aspiration a bad MoFo like me will never attain! It was beautiful. It overlooked a lake. It had its own little jetty and a boat. It had a sauna. And the pièce de résistance, a potato store! You’ve made it in Sweden if you have a potato store. Most swedes can only dream of such a thing, although I don’t think you have to limit storage just to potatoes!  A whole room dedicated to root vegetables so we could bunker down in the winter. It was there in the Lake house. Heaven! So close… and yet way to fucking far from civilization! 3 hours a day dedicated to the school run is just too much! Like heaven… out of reach! You Bastards!

So we looked at houses in the town! You showed me heaven and gave me hell!

Hell #1 was a tiny apartment that quite clearly some old person had died in. Not only did it not have a potato store it didn't have space for a washing machine. There was a communal laundry room where I would be given a WEEKLY slot to do my washing! You godly bastards know I have to run a washing machine 24/7 to clean up after my son! His lack of bottom wiping skills alone fill a washing mashing load on a daily basis.

Hell #2  I grew up on a council estate of blocks of flats. It was condemned years ago. I thought it had been knocked down but no! It had been moved brick by brick to Sweden Karmly waiting for me to come back round!

Hell #3 A house smaller than my first 2 up 2 down house. I accept that the house in Texas is absurdly big but moving into a living space the size of our bathroom in Texas is too much of a compromise

Hell #4 I think the torture chamber scenes from ‘the girl with the Dragon tattoo’ were filmed here. More than one person had died. Think trailer park trash Swedish style! Maybe it was the mock crocs giving out all the wrong signals to the relocation agency about the sort of person I was!

Then there were the schools! Only a choice of two that had English lessons. One school would not take my son (I thought his reputation preceded him but they do not take kids under 10) and the other that appeared to be floating on a mud lake! I could turn a blind eye to the ramshackled shit hole of a building. I could turn a blind eye to the lack of adult supervision outside, it was cold! I could turn a blind eye to the poor behaviour I saw in the classroom, I couldn’t understand it and I would have played up because it was in Swedish! SWEDISH!!!! That bit I couldn’t ignore! 50% of lessons at the ‘international’ school were in Swedish! My daughter struggles with maths in English! Added to that, my son started school at 4 in the UK. They made him start again at 5 in the USA. They want to make him start again in Sweden at 7. They showed me the reception class of 7 year olds. It looked like a nursery class. My son reads novels!

So the punishment continues! I tried to be creative. Live in the lake house, I reasoned! Store potatoes, invite the neighbours round to view the impressive array of root vegetables and drive 50 kilometers to the school each day. Pretend the school was lovely. Go to university to fill the time while the kids are at school. The only Masters course I could apply for? Holocaust and Genocide studies! Sweden has a higher suicide rate in polar winter. I fear the rate may increase by 1!

So! I move to Sweden in January.

My dear gods! I know I haven’t prayed for … a very long time…. Errr Ok, never! But I’m f**king praying now!

Yours repentantly

Stranger about to enter a Stranger Land Still!

Kiddie Party Time! Texas Style!

It is hard to entertain Kids these days. They live in a fast moving high tech world where it takes a lot to impress. This is especially true when it comes to planning their birthday parties. When I was little a birthday party meant having a maximum of 6 friends round for beef paste sandwiches and Jelly (made in the special rabbit mould that was only used for birthdays). If someone was really pushing the boat out they had French Fancies or Swiss roll. We couldn't afford French Fancies! Fortunately I hate French fancies so I was always very excited by party ring biscuits! Still am! Nothing like a sugar coated party ring!

There was no such thing as party bags. If you were lucky you got the prize from pass-the-parcel and a slice of home made birthday cake! These days party bags are such a nightmare. I have spent many a sleepless night worrying about whether I’ll measure up with my party bag offerings! The world of party bags is very competitive, and it isn’t limited to party bags. My daughter went to one party where there was a basket of toy fluffy cute puppies at the door, for each girl to take one as they left. I’m surprised they weren’t real pooches! In my day the party bag was the girl who had already started puberty early and behaved inappropriately with someone’s brother, or worse, their dad! Still is!

In America my son’s birthday is well into the Summer holiday so I was at a loss as to what to do as there are only a few of his friends around. My daughter had her party at a place called Gatti–Town! You can eat as much Pizza as you want and I have to confess to loving their coconut and custard pizza (I know! Irresistible!) but that aside it was as vulgar as it sounds! You buy each party guest a ‘credit card’ which they use to gamble on Amusement arcade type games. They win tickets which they can exchange for tat. A $25 card will win them enough tickets to exchange for around $2 worth of absolute shite. The kids love it. They expect at least $25 each on their cards! One of her friends manically tried to win a big ball in one of those grab machines. Each go cost $2.50. The balls are for sale in Wal-mart for $2. Two of the girls managed to get a ball. She spent her whole card trying to get one in the first 10 minutes of arriving. I had to buy her another card so that she wasn’t sitting alone for an hour with bugger all to do, while I walked round with huge balls! I don’t want to go there again (except for the pizza pudding) I really don’t want to engage in such blatant corruption of small children again. It encourages gambling and a desire for big balls at the very least.

There is no point taking him to somewhere like the new $60 million Pleasure Pier at Galveston. Not only will there be height restrictions on some of the rides which will be sure to frustrate and disappoint the Birthday Boy but it will be worse than Blackpool! Redneck heaven! ‘Galveston’, ‘Pleasure’, and ‘Ride’ are not words that should be naturally associated unless you’ve been on the moonshine or you are on holiday to Galveston from Kentucky with your cousins!

I have found something authentic for his birthday. Something that is Texan through and through and it is very local! A birthday party at the local Gun range! I don’t accept the obvious criticism that a party atmosphere in the context of firearms for children is wrong, misguided, dangerous or irresponsible! I know some kids get a sugar rush after cake but it’s not like they’ll be doing anything dangerous - just firing off a few rounds! This is Texas FFS! Better still, there is no age limit and the only height requirement is that the kids can see over the shooting tables (approx 36” so even toddlers might qualify!)

There are some rules from the Arms Room in Houston to ensure maximum health and safety:

1. Keep muzzle pointed down range AT ALL TIMES. Do not point a weapon at anything you do not want to destroy.

Best make sure siblings are not together then at the party… oh and the class weirdo that no one likes. Don’t invite him. Have you read ‘There’s something about Kevin’? It starts when they are young.

2. Index your finger out of the trigger guard. Always keep your finger off the trigger until you are ready to shoot

Have you ever played any sort of competitive game with a 7 year old where they have to wait? They never wait until the ‘Go’ on ‘Ready, Steady…’ I knew a trained professional police office who once ignored this rule to his complete shame! He put his finger on the trigger, got over excited and discharged his fire arm all over the place. Very messy!

3. Do not load firearm until ready to shoot. Loaded firearms must always remain in the shooting stall, pointed down range.

Confusing! Once loaded and ready to shoot how can you shoot if they have to remain in the shooting stall? Apply a small child logic and that rule has none! I have a small child mentality and it isn’t logical!

4. Hearing and eye protection must be worn AT ALL TIMES when on the range.

This will work, because my son always wears the nerf gun safety glasses and never purposely shoots anyone else in the face with foam bullets.

5. Absolutely no running or horseplay when on the range. All children must be under adult supervision AT ALL TIMES.

Children! Absolutely no running or horseplay …at a birthday party where everyone is over excited. Don’t be having any fun! Oh and parents – control your f**king own children. I can barely control my own!

6. No shooting from the hip or quick drawing. Fire from chest level or above only.

So, kids, all those cowboy movies you’ve seen where the hero quick draws and kills all the baddies… Not at this party! No Fancy Nancy gun slinging here! No rootin tootin paula style twizzling of your guns!

7. Everyone must obey the instructions/directions of the Range Safety Officer AT ALL TIMES.
8. In the event of the Range Safety Officer ordering a Cease Fire: UNLOAD your firearm, place your firearm on the bench (pointing down range), and step back off the firing line.

As a teacher I know, according to professional research, it takes 5 seconds for student’s brains to disengage from whatever it was they were focused on in order to focus on an instruction from me. As a mother I know that is just bollocks and kids will do whatever they like at a birthday party (or anywhere else for that matter. Selective hearing is an art form of the young!)

Oh…and that small child logic? If they have obeyed rule number 4 and have their hearing protection on they have a perfect excuse not to hear any adults!

9. When leaving the firing line: All weapons MUST BE UNLOADED, locked in the open position (with chamber visible) and carried in a safe manner off the firing line.

No last minute Dirty Harry shoot out to be the last man standing! This isn’t musical chairs with a difference. Everyone must still have legs to stand on! Are you listening Kevin?

For my fortieth birthday, ‘friends’ took me paint balling. It was great. I got shot in the head and had pink paint running down my face to prove it. Those paint balls hurt! The big issue for that was how much ammo to buy. Too much and it can get out of hand. Too little is no party at all! I confess I went completely over the top and got paint grenades and smoke bombs and way too many paint ball bullets! I got shot so quickly every round I didn’t get chance to shoot anyone else! I thought I was Rambo! Children were not allowed to go paint balling as it was seen as too dangerous! Texas is a proper place. They give the kids real guns for fun at the kiddy ‘birthday cake and guns’ party. My big dilemma will be how much ammo to apportion each child! There will always be one trigger happy mo-fo that uses up all the ammo in the first 5 minutes and spoils it for everyone else! Especially if the kiddy in question is called Kevin, didn’t much like the other kids and abided firmly by rule no.1.

Something Fishy!

I have a fish phobia. There are several incidents I can connect to this but I’m not sure which ones caused the phobia and which are the result of my dislike for all things fishy!

When I was very young my Dad would take me fishing with him, in the early hours of the morning. Why is it that fishermen feel the need to go fishing at 4am? Are fish nocturnal? Are they early risers? Being dragged out of bed at 4am to sit on a freezing cold riverbank for hours on end may have been the start of my dislike.

I’m not sure if it was the horrid little wriggling gold fish in the net or the smell of my sister’s rancid fish tank made me heave when I was forced to clean it after she left home and abandoned her fish but by the time I was in my teens I had a serious aversion to fish! One once leaped for freedom from the tank and my little Jack Russell dog picked it up and delivered it to me in my bed! It is painful to relive the moment! Too Gross!

I don’t mind eating them as long as they no longer resemble fish! Live fish make me physically heave! I once virtually cut my finger in half trying to chop the head off a trout I was going to cook without looking at it. The first time I met hubby’s whole family was at his Grandmother’s birthday. I ordered fish and prawns but to my horror they arrived with all their shells and bits still attached. I pulled a head off a prawn and yellow snotty gunge oozed out while the fish looked at me through its milky boiled eye! I eat nothing and blamed my subsequent level of inebriation on lack of food. It, or should I say I, failed to ever impress the future in-laws but his 80 odd year old grandmother enjoyed the show and the family discord that followed!

I probably shouldn’t say this but my own dear grandmother used to fish …on the settee! Perhaps some gynecological problem related to old age! It certainly left an impression on me!

When we moved to a house with a double garage I got hubby a pool table for Christmas and installed a brand new beer fridge in the garage. The fridge had barely cooled when my mother house sat for a week. She has a fisherman friend and was often the lucky recipient of Seaman Stains’ catch from his little tug boat on the high seas. When I returned there was a gigantic dead salmon in there, with head, bitey teeth and blood dripping! It was so huge it had to be curled round on the empty self so it could fit in! I think that was the moment I switched to red wine which doesn’t need to be chilled. Indeed, fish may be the route cause of my alcoholism! …and I never played pool!

The local supermarket here in Houston boasts a live crawfish fest every weekend they have a huge vat of live crawfish (crayfish) that look like a cross between huge beetles and cockroaches. There are big tongs to use to pick out the best for your crawfish gumbo. . I don’t understand how a nation with so little taste and so lazy (you can buy spray cheese and all your vegetables ready chopped – if you are insane enough to cook and not eat out) buys living, whole creatures to boil alive! I try not to look every week but it has the same pull as a car crash. I head to the wine aisle quickly afterwards!

I have been driven to drink again today by fish, lest I dwell on the new horror I face here in Texas. I have spent the day vacuuming and spaying toxic bug killer that, knowing America will contain chemicals known to render my children infertile, but is completely acceptable because it kills the bugs! The cause of this frenzied activity? No! Not acceptance of my lot as a desperate house wife …I will never surrender on that one! It is my fear of fish. I don’t care that SILVER FISH are not technically fish; they look and move like a fish -out of water. I could accept that they might lurk in damp dark bathrooms but I found one in the wardrobe on an item of clothing! That means they could be anywhere! They like eating books, clothing, hair and dandruff and while they can live a year without food they wont need to in my bedroom with all those things in abundant supply! They like it hot and humid! So did I till I discovered them! Welcome to Texas!

The bastards are nocturnal! As I go to bed tonight, glass of red in one hand, Dyson hand held vac in the other (and hubby in Detroit where it is cold and dry and silverfish free) I will reminisce fondly of those early mornings on the river bank with my father … because , come to think of it, he never actually caught a fish!